The Job Description Is Broken: Here's How to Fix It

The average job description was not designed to attract candidates. It was designed to protect the company legally, reflect internal job codes, and satisfy HR compliance requirements. At some point, someone decided this document should also be the first thing candidates read about a role — and nobody has fixed that mistake since.

The results are predictable. Job descriptions that read like legal contracts. Required skills lists that include things the team doesn't actually need. Salary ranges buried at the bottom — or absent entirely. Descriptions of the company that read like they were written by the marketing team for an investor deck.

And at the end: a form to upload a resume that the ATS will parse incorrectly.

Here's how to write a job description that actually serves its purpose: telling the right candidates this is the job for them and telling the wrong ones it isn't.

Start With the Problem, Not the Qualifications

Most JDs start with the company. Some start with the job title and a list of responsibilities. Almost none start with the actual problem this hire will solve.

A senior engineer at a Series B startup once told me she'd been applying to jobs for two months before one description actually told her what the team was working on. The rest described desired qualifications, not desired outcomes.

Try this opening structure instead: "We're building [X]. The challenge we're trying to solve is [Y]. This role exists to [specific outcome Z]."

This tells a qualified candidate immediately whether their experience is relevant. It also signals that the company has thought clearly about what it actually needs — itself a meaningful signal to senior candidates evaluating whether this is a well-run place to work.

Kill the Requirement Inflation

Research consistently shows that male candidates apply when they meet 60% of listed requirements; female candidates tend to apply only when they meet 100%. Requirement inflation — listing every nice-to-have alongside actual necessities — doesn't narrow your candidate pool to the best people. It narrows it to the most confident ones.

Go through every requirement and ask: would we reject an otherwise excellent candidate for not having this? If no, it's not a requirement. Put it in a "nice to have" section or cut it.

Most roles have three to five genuine requirements. The rest is wishful thinking that costs you qualified candidates.

Be Specific About the Work

"Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders" appears in approximately 90% of job descriptions and describes approximately nothing. What does collaboration actually look like? Weekly syncs? Shared ownership of deliverables? Managing up to a C-suite executive who has opinions about everything?

The candidates who will succeed in your role are looking for signals that the work will match their working style, not generic descriptions that could apply to any role at any company.

Replace "work closely with engineering" with "partner with a team of 6 engineers to define technical requirements and unblock weekly sprint planning." Replace "own the product roadmap" with "make final prioritization calls on a backlog of 80+ items, with input from sales, customer success, and leadership."

Specificity attracts the right candidates. Vagueness attracts everyone and helps no one.

Include the Salary Range

This is no longer optional. Candidates in 2025 are filtering out jobs without posted compensation before they read the description. In several US states and a growing number of markets globally, pay transparency is now legally required.

More importantly: hiding the salary range creates friction and waste. It asks candidates to invest hours in a process they may abandon once they learn the comp doesn't match their expectations. It creates awkward conversations at offer stage. It signals a lack of transparency that candidates now associate with broader cultural problems.

Post the range. If you're afraid it will create internal equity conversations, that's not a recruiting problem — that's a compensation problem worth solving.

Tell Candidates What to Expect From the Process

How many rounds? Roughly how long will it take? Will there be a take-home assignment? This information is almost never in job descriptions, despite being among the things candidates most want to know.

Including it signals respect for the candidate's time. It also reduces the drop-off that occurs when candidates are surprised by a six-round process they didn't expect.

A JD that takes 45 minutes to write well will outperform one written in 10 minutes for every week it's live. Given that most roles stay open for 30–60 days, the ROI on doing this properly is substantial.

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